Yeah, it's been a long time since I've posted anything here. The reason? Well, mainly laziness, considering that I don't work quite as much as I used to (not that I used to work a whole lot at my day job anyways). To my credit, I have been using up a lot of my free time finishing another project, which I finished the bulk of today, to be honest. Also, I started posting my reviews on the BMMB (www.badmoviezone.com) instead of here as well.

Pretty soon I'll abandon this blog and start another one up with another, better blog service. Yahoo! 360 simply just doesn't cut it. When I re-start the blog, I'll probably have shorter movie reviews, more book reviews, and more stuff about my life. We'll see how that goes. Okay, talk to you all later.

Films Watched:

Woman Avenger

North Shaolin vs. South Shaolin

Leg Fighters

Challenge of Death

Shanghai Lil and the Sunluck Kid

Golden Queen Commando

Wolf Devil Woman

Books read:

Die Nibelungenlied

Contos Russos (Russian Folk Tales)

Epic of Gilgamesh

Solaris

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

I read two of Le Guin's books and liked them quite a bit, in spite of the fact that they were basically 40 pages of actual story (the rest of the books being made up of chunks of exposition and character building). I decided that it was time for me to revisit her work and picked this one up, expecting it to be pretty good. It turned out to be a pretty darn good book.

The story is pretty simple. A guy, George Orr, is cursed with the ability to dream about things and have the dreams come true, affecting the past, present and future. After a number of bad experiences with drugs, he's obligated to see a psychiatrist, who decides to use a device called the Augmentor to stimulate Orr's dreams and see if he's telling the truth and not just a crackpot. The psychiatrist figures out the Orr is for real and starts using the machine to give "focus" to Orr's dreams, trying to make him correct the world's problems (overpopulation, war, racial conflicts, etc.). Meanwhile, Orr falls in love with a female lawyer who he asked to represent him, feeling that the psychiatrist's controlling his dreams is an invasion of privacy.

I assume that this story is, in part, one of the inspirations for the film The Butterfly Effect, which I never actually saw. It's a really compelling narrative helped by the fact that Le Guin builds two complex characters: George Orr and Dr. Haber. Dr. Haber is something of a mad scientist, but one with honestly good intentions (despite the fact that he does make sure that Orr always dreams up a better position for him with each change in society). He does end up falling victim to his own desires to create a utopian world, leading him to nearly destroy the world he wanted to perfect. Orr, despite the fact that he's introduced to us as something of a drug addict, eventually shows himself to be a strong and morally responsible man, who simply wants to be rid of the near God-like powers that he has. Le Guin also does a pretty good job of milking the multiple pasts/futures scenario for all its worth.

A highly recommended book.

It's official: Susan has now started to walk on her own (without holding onto a wall or something like that). It took less than two months from when she started to crawl to get here. We're so proud of her.

The Butterfly Lovers (2008)

"The Butterfly Lovers" is an old Chinese legend dating back to the Tang Dynasty and is one of the timeless love stories of Chinese literature/folklore. The story is about a girl who is dressed as a man by her parents for some reason or another (I think it's to be able to study at a school for males). She ends up falling for a fellow scholar, who ends up discovering her secret and falling for her. Unfortunately, she is forced to marry another guy. The love of her life ends up dying from depression and she ends up killing herself. Their spirits are transformed into butterflies and they are reunited thus.

The Butterfly Lovers is a cinematic adaptation of the legend that changes the setting from a scholarly school to a martial arts school. Zhu (Charlene Choi) is dressed up as a man so she can study martial arts at a prestigious school. She is accompanied by her best friend, Ma (Hu Ge), who is secretly in love with her. Arriving at the school, she is taken under the wing of Shan (Wu Chun), the senior student. Zhu starts to fall for Shan and Shan does feel something for her, even though he still thinks she's a man.

Shan eventually discovers Zhu's identity and falls promptly in love with her. Unfortunately, Ma has become an important official and is determined to marry Zhu. He secretly has her parents thrown into prison and then publicly releases them, causing them to promise Zhu to him in gratitude. Zhu decides to flee with Shan, but their plans are upset when Ma imprisons her parents again and threatens to hang them unless she marries him. By this time, we all know that things cannot have a conventional happy ending.

Now, the major difference between the original story and this cinematic version is the inclusion of martial arts into the scenario, which was obviously done to make the DVD saleable on the overseas market. Other than that, the major details seem be in order. The only part of the script that really didn't belong in the movie was the half-a**ed attempt to thrown in some court intrigue, which only serves to provide the film with an extra fight scene and explain why Ma has the power to throw her parents in jail and walk around with a contigent of soldiers in the last half of the film.

Unfortunately, the acting styles of the main leads and their "pretty-boy" appearances make this timeless tale of love seem more like a teeny-bopper romance and teen angst period piece more than anything else. Worse, Charlene Choi's impish little girl routine makes it VERY hard to swallow that she could convince everyone she was a boy for so long. The only thing I can in its favor is that it's a nice break from the super stoic acting we've been given in too many of these films since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

That said, this really isn't a movie you watch if you want to see a lot of fights. There are only four set-pieces, brought to you by wire-fu maestro Ching Siu-Tung, who seems to repeating his work from House of Flying Daggers (2004) and Hero (2002). The best fight is one between Hu Ge and Terry "Ricky-Oh" Fan Siu-Wong, in which the latter performs some good Eagle's Claw. The climax is pretty good, when Shan takes on a bunch of soldiers and finally Ma. His fight against the soldiers and their captain is good. The fight against Ma seems like a rehash of the final fight of House of Flying Daggers.

There are few interesting cameos. The martial arts teacher is played by superkicker (and Jet Li stunt double) Xiong Xin-Xin, who doesn't fight and has gained some pounds since I've last seen him. Zhu's father is played by Shaw Bros legend Ti Lung, who's a welcome sight.

The film does look good (a given considering that Jingle Ma directed it) and a few of the fights are entertaining, and I did like the final scene, so I give it a marginal recommendation. It isn't any classic, though.